Global COE Program Global Education and Research Center Aiming at the control of AIDS

Program Overview > Program Members > Shinichi, Oka

Center for AIDS Research, visiting Professor
Infectious Diseases, M.D., Ph.D. Member of International Research Committee, Research on HIV therapy

International Collaborative study with resource limited countries

Counterparts of our international collaborative studies are quite different from other divisions in the Kumamoto University. Our counterparts are located in resource limited countries. We have two counterparts currently; one in Vietnam and another in Mongolia. We have a plan to expand our research field to South Korea in near future. Another different point from the Kumamoto University is that our research is mainly focused on clinical settings.

1. Vietnam

The National Institute for Infectious and Tropical Diseases (NIITD) located in Hanoi is our counterpart. In Vietnam, antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been just started by the Global Fund provided drugs. However, supportive systems for patients on ART are still not enough. Therefore, risk of emergence of drug resistant virus is thought to be very high, although detection system of the resistant virus is lacked. Furthermore, HIV-1 circulating in Vietnam is CRF01-AE of which patterns of resistance mutation are suspected to have some differences comparing with those of subtype B. An objective of our collaborative study is to establish the drug resistance assay system in NIITD and to determine the most suitable second line drugs in Vietnam.

2. Mongolia

Prevalence of HIV-1 infection in Mongolia is very low currently, although those of neighboring countries, Russia and China, are high. However, the surveillance system is not fully established, allowing the lack of accurate information. In our preliminary survey (1), prevalence of syphilis in female commercial sex workers are very high, indicating high risk status of HIV-1 infection. An objective of this study is to analyze the accurate status of HIV-1 infection to develop effective preventive measure in Mongolia.

In our collaborative study, there are some merits comparing with that in developed countries. First, you can involve in the study much more subjectively and independently. Not only results obtained from our study will contribute directly to their country but also you can learn the whole step of clinical study including how to write a study protocol, how to get the approval from the local ethics committee, how to obtain accurate data, and so on.

♦Reference
2. 1.	Davaalkham J, Oka S、et al. Allele and Genotype Frequencies of Cytochrome P450 2B6 Gene in a Mongolian Population. Drug Metab Disp (in press) Davaalkham J, Oka S et al. High risk status of HIV-1 in the very low epidemic country, Mongolia, 2007. *Int J STD AIDS* 20: 391-394, 2009.